United Wagon Company starts the mass production of 120-cubic hopper car for mineral fertilizers

United Wagon Company (UWC or the Holding) (MOEX: UWGN) starts the mass production of hopper cars for mineral fertilizers with body volume of 120 m3. This freight car leaves its counterparts, existing on the CIS countries market, far behind due to its technical-economic characteristics. 

Increased capacity of the new generation hopper car body provides the increased up to 76 t loading of freights, including those with a low bulk density (up to +6 t of freight in comparison with counterparts) that allows to effectively transporting all nomenclature of mineral fertilizers. The application of a special two-component covering creates a reliable protection of the body against aggressive influence of freight.

The application of innovative bogie with increased axle load is a considerable competitive advantage of the hopper car for mineral fertilizers. Increased terms of between-repairs runs (up to 800,000 km / 8 years), provide, by more than 3 times, the reduction of cost of the freight car lifecycle. Hopper car service life is 32 years.

Two effective locking-sealing devices (instead of four, used in counterparts) have been applied in the construction design of loading and unloading hatches locking mechanisms. The application of these devices significantly reduces costs and saves time of freight carriers.

New generation hopper car assembly capacities of Tikhvin Freight Car Building Plant. Freight car has been designed by “All-Union Research and Development Centre for Transportation Technology”. The Federal Budgetary Organization “Register of Certification on the Federal Railway Transport” certificate confirms that the new freight car model complies with the requirements of Technical Regulations of the Customs Union 001/2011 “On the safety of the rolling stock”. 

According to industry experts’ estimations, the segment of mineral fertilizers transportation is the one that is least exposed to the economic volatility of the last two years due to a high share of export shipments. Therefore, the demand for mineral-handling cars remains stable, as confirmed by recent transactions for the sale of new rolling stock. In the medium term, the demand for this type of freight cars will be increasing in the course of production capacities’ commissionings, which have already been announced by the largest manufacturers including FosAgro, MCC “EuroChem” and Uralkali. Moreover, according to information and analytical agency INFOLine, the sales of innovative mineral-handling cars will, for the next several years, remain at the level of 2.5-3 ths. items annually.